Barcelona 2012 - Event Report - Women's 4x100m Relay

There was drama in yesterday’s first round heats of the women’s 4x100m relays. Yet there was more to come in tonight’s final.

Only 10 teams had reached the finish line in the first round after Australia, Canada, Spain and South Africa had been disqualified and teams of Bahamas, Slovenia and Jamaica failed to finish.

Tonight, only 6 teams featured on the results sheets as Great Britain failed to finish and Nigeria was disqualified!

All things considered it was a fair conclusion for the US quartet of Morgan Snow, Dezerea Bryant, Jennifer Madu and Shayla Sanders who brought the baton down to the line in a World Junior leading time of 43.89, also the seventh fastest of all-time.

With a team that included individual 100m finalist Ida Mayer in second leg, Germany defended the silver medal they won in Moncton 2 years ago in a season’s best 44.24 just ahead of Brazil whose anchor leg Jessica Carolina Dos Reis completed a superb final 100 to stop the clock at 44.29.

No-one will never know what would have been if World Youth champion Desirée Henry had been able to hand over the baton to anchor leg Sophie Papps who, having been sixth in the individual final certainly had what it takes to challenge the Americans.

It has now become an unfortunate habit for the British Junior teams to end on a sad note both men and women’s 4x100 failing to finish here in Barcelona, 2 years after they had suffered the same fate in Moncton’s men’s and women’s sprint relay finals.